The Climate change action after Copenhagen and Cancun

The Sibthorp Trust has published a provocative series of articles for the general public to stimulate formative debate on climate change in the post Copenhagen period by inviting a range of commentators to give their personal perspectives on where we are going and what needs to be done.

The key issues Sibthorp has asked commentators to address are as follows:

1. Was FCCC CoP 15 a failure?

Is the Accord worth the paper it is written on?

How crucial is the lack of a deal to ensure that global temperature rise would be limited to 2ºC?

Are offers of substantial funding from the rich to the poorer nations helpful and deliverable?

Are national mechanisms, such as the UK and Scottish Acts, more likely to be successful?

3. Why is the scientific consensus not getting through?

Why is the scientific case not getting through to the media and to the public?

Do the sceptics have a point or are they just making mischief?

How can the case be made more effectively?

s the global warming data flawed, are the models inadequate, is the data deficient in certain ways?

Are there uncertainties, which give ammunition to the sceptics? For example, is the slowing down of warming in the last few years real or is the heat being stored in less easy to detect places? Are the models insufficiently sophisticated? Are we taking sufficient account of the role of the oceans?

4. Will the technology development stumble now?

Is the failure to reach a binding Accord likely to deter technological advance on GHG reducing technologies?

What further stimuli are needed for technological development?

5. How should the public be mobilised to act rather than just opine?

6. What are the critical next steps?

The publication Climate change action after Copenhagen and Cancun: What Next? is available for download from here.

The UK has voted to leave the European Union, launching the country into a period of uncertainty as a new relationship with Europe and the world is negotiated. The EU frameworks that have underpinned much of our environmental policy and legislation – from agriculture to protected areas – are no longer assured.

Yet the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss will lose none of their urgency. What will environmental policy in the UK look like outside of the European Union? What threats and opportunities does ‘Brexit’ pose for the environment? How will we tackle international challenges under a new political agreement?

Questions were put to our panel of leading politicians, chaired by leading broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby.

The panellists included:

Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour, previously Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs